What's the highest negotiated fee you've been asked to pay for a player?

With a decent squad of players, £90 million in the bank (thanks to the generosity of the Man City owner) and 24 hours left before the transfer deadline closed I decided to test Barcelona's resolve and bid big for Leo Messi.

I went straight in £85 million, hoping that would match Barca's valuation. But no, the Barca board came back and agreed that if I were to offer £180,000,000 I could sit Leo down and talk numbers.

Fortunately I never got to find out what his wage demands were.

Around the same time I approached Liverpool with a £87m bid for free-scoring Fernando Torres and the Liverpool board suggested a improved offer of £115m would suffice. No thanks! I'll stick with Cristaldo thanks.

What's the most you've been asked to stump up for a player?

What you're describing isn't a negotiated offer tbh. That's an offer to start the negotiations with.

£600,000. Reading REALLY didn't want Basingstoke to be able to talk to Romano Vasilev.

I was quoted £100m for Messi in the first few seasons when i was playing as Man Utd, i said "no"

if you bid 90m for messi and they hit back with 180m then you can get him for about 135m if you know what your doing lol

What you're describing isn't a negotiated offer tbh. That's an offer to start the negotiations with.

Errr, say what?

I approach Barcelona with a bid of £85 million and they say "You can talk to him if you pay up £180 million". That sounds like a negotiated offer to me.....

The £85m is the initial offer and the returned £180m is the negotiated offer. So THAT IS a negotiated offer, which I had to withdraw because I didn't have enough cash.

Blimey, I really didn't realise I would have to explain myself over such a simple question.

if you bid 90m for messi and they hit back with 180m then you can get him for about 135m if you know what your doing lol

I will wait for another cash injection from the Man City owner then and try and sign him next time around.

£600,000. Reading REALLY didn't want Basingstoke to be able to talk to Romano Vasilev.

Ha ha. I took a double take when reading this the first time through. I'm guessing you are a fan of lower league football. There's a few less zeros involved lower down the leagues, huh?

Errr, say what?

I approach Barcelona with a bid of £85 million and they say "You can talk to him if you pay up £180 million". That sounds like a negotiated offer to me.....

No, it isn't. You give a starting bid (which should be less then you're willing to pay), then they give a starting bid (which is more then they're willing to accept).

Then you start negotiating.

No, it isn't. You give a starting bid (which should be less then you're willing to pay), then they give a starting bid (which is more then they're willing to accept).

Then you start negotiating.

Technically the other team starting the negotiating by asking for £180m. They have negotiated the original offer.

But then you should be able to bid somewhere in between and they should accept, it's all about the haggle.

I made a bid for Torres for about £100m, they came back and asked me for £268m, they eventually accepted a structured deal worth around £170m. I then cancelled it anyway. 2 seasons later I got him for £29m.

Technically the other team starting the negotiating by asking for £180m. They have negotiated the original offer.

But then you should be able to bid somewhere in between and they should accept, it's all about the haggle.

My point was actually that that offer is negotiable and that it is not the "take it or leave it" offer that many players seem to think it is.

When trying to buy Fabregas for Man City, I put in a bid of 98 million, which was my entire transfer budget. Arsenal came back and said that would let him leave for 198 million.

On FM08 I was playing as Arsenal, and had something like a £200m transfer budget. I wanted to get myself a new striker, and at the time, Zlatan Ibrahimovic was all the rage. So I started trying to negotiate with Inter. Eventually after about 5000 attempts at making a bid (You can't set initial fee above £150m unless they negotiate it) I managed to get an offer accepted for something like £150m up front and 50% of a sell on fee, plus various extras.

So I send him on over a contract offer. Unfortunately he doesn't seem much interested in joining the biggest team in the world, so I set the weekly wage to the maximum I could, which was well over 100k a week, possibly near 200k a week, plus the maximum for appearance and goal bonuses, and perhaps one or two other things.

He got back to me quite quickly to say he didn't want to join me as he would rather stay at Inter!

After that I got very mad at him. Never tried to sign him again. Went out the very same day and had a £70m offer for Karim Benzema accepted by Lyon. Guy turned out to be a monster for me. Glad Ibrahimovic said no in the end!

My point was actually that that offer is negotiable and that it is not the "take it or leave it" offer that many players seem to think it is.

Yeah the original point from my question was, WHAT IS THE HIGHEST VALUE A CLUB HAS RETURNED WHEN BIDDING FOR A PLAYER? Not, what is the highest fee you've had accepted for a player during negotiations.

Had I realised I needed to be so specific in my questioning I would have reworded it so everyone can understand it. Although everyone else seemed to understand it okay.....

Blimey the people in these forums are an effort today!

in FM2010 i got 30 Million for RVP ( he is 31 years old!)

in FM2009 i got i think 50-60 Million for Fabregas (rejected ofcourse)

In my current save £16 Million for Charlie Adam ...

Ha ha. I took a double take when reading this the first time through. I'm guessing you are a fan of lower league football. There's a few less zeros involved lower down the leagues, huh?

Not really - I'm a Reading fan, and always had Basingstoke as the feeder club, so decided to start a game with them and try to work up. Vasilev went to Oxford in the end, the horrid little man. Basingstoke in League 2 now, though, but been offered the Reading job. Tough choices!

I got an offer of £35 million for a 35 yr old Frank Lampard but cheekily pushed it to £42 million!!! Why do you guys go for the likes of Messi, Torres and Fabregas? it's not very good business when there are other's who can do just as good a job for a fraction of the cost....?

£7m goalkeeper... offered £12m and they made me pay £32.7m i think it was... not my biggest buy, but certainly the biggest negotiation. There was once when a £5m player was on my shopping list... i offered £8m and they wanted £31m and £1m after 30 league games... i declined

In FM 09 i bidded something like £56 million for an italian regen which juventus did not think was enough, they wanted £81 million. I accepted. That was eight years ago on my save and is still far and away the biggest transfer of the game so far.

Haven't really played at the level where these kinda demands occur. The highest I've had on my current game (I'm Ajax at the present) was ~£20m for Witsel after I offered £8m. We eventually settled on £12m.

Yeah the original point from my question was, WHAT IS THE HIGHEST VALUE A CLUB HAS RETURNED WHEN BIDDING FOR A PLAYER? Not, what is the highest fee you've had accepted for a player during negotiations.

Had I realised I needed to be so specific in my questioning I would have reworded it so everyone can understand it. Although everyone else seemed to understand it okay.....

Blimey the people in these forums are an effort today!

He's just stating that it isn't a final offer of £180m take it or leave it which is what you're making it out to be. Teams often meet in the middle and was trying to make that apparent for anyone's help.

Stop with the sarcasm is it was evident he understood it, just as everyone else has.

On CM 01/02 i was AC Milan. Dortmund wanted Seedorf for £35million but just for a laugh i asked for £72million! they matched it but i really didnt want to get rid so i said gimme £87million! he was a dortmund player a few days later! had to accept £87million!

I once got told £67m for Kolo Toure - funnily enough I broke off negotiations.

About four seasons in i tried to sign Pato and made an offer for him only for Athletico Madrid to ask for £127m, which i happily declined.